


In the After, Before the End

by JessicaPendragon



Series: Canon Keela Lavellan [47]
Category: Dragon Age, Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst, Depression, F/M, Gen, Keela being mad, Solavellan, Trespasser DLC, Trespasser Spoilers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-15
Updated: 2016-03-02
Packaged: 2018-05-01 18:45:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 9,084
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5216639
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JessicaPendragon/pseuds/JessicaPendragon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A series of short fics chronicling the aftermath of DA:I for my Inquisitor, Keela Lavellan, dealing with her disability and dreams, saying goodbye to friends, and finding a new purpose. Ongoing - probably won't be finished until the next game comes out. </p><p> </p><p>  <a href="http://jessicapendragon.tumblr.com/post/134253709139/in-the-after-before-the-end">Tumblr Link</a></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. What Ruin Makes

She watches dust dance within streams of light breaking through the curtains. Their steps are slow, uncaring, void of purpose except to simply exist. Muted noises curl through the air to join them. Garbled voices, music filling in the empty spaces, feet shuffling towards unknown places. All of it is fleeting, meaningless, the last stanza before the inevitable end.

Soft sheets rustle as she turns and tears fall down her cheeks jostled free from the movement. She cannot stop crying. Perhaps she should have paid closer attention to the structure around her soul, noted the cracks and loose mortar, really looked instead of standing so far away for so long. This is a flood of her own making, of her own blind pride. 

Why did she think herself so above the possibility of breaking? Who was she to ever grasp the fabric of fate and demand it weave to her whims? She is a frayed stitch, a discorded tangent in a beautiful tapestry. 

She is someone’s mistake. 

Keela has not looked at her arm since, cannot look, but there is no need. She sees it in the reflection of her companions, their smiles strung up on trembling threads threatening to snap. The last two days they have all come to offer support except for Dorian. The amulet lays ice cold against her skin, burning without flame. For what comfort could they offer one another in the face of such bitter ends? The only fitting apology would be to bite off her own tongue as if the action might take back the words that sealed both their fates in pouring blood and rain.

If there has ever been a monster, it is her.

She sees it in every blink, the bright, final surge of the anchor forever marring her memory, muscle and bone withered and blackened without its light. There was little pain in the aftermath, or maybe there is too little left of her to feel. What is she without the mark, without the Fade rippling through her eyes and kissing every spell that flies through her lips? Who is the Inquisitor without the power resting in palm? What use is a symbol that no longer exists?

It is all gone. The thing inside her that made her special, the spark that ignited fires across Thedas and purpose within her breast. Her friends will drift like dandelions in what calm wind remains before the hurricane. Her heritage is burned away to ashes just like the vallaslin across her cheeks, a piece of her past sacrificed to fading future. Her heart given freely, unreachable beneath layers of an avalanche building for years and over in seconds.

And it is all her doing from the moment she chose to go left instead right, decided to interfere when she was only tasked with investigating. Would this world be here if she hadn’t been there, fingers outstretched towards glistening orb? What has she done but trade one judge for another and keep the same sentence? 

He thinks she could never understand, but she does. It is the reason she has not slept in two days. He cannot wake up to the reality of what he has created and she cannot shut her eyes against her own failures. She knows the demons will be waiting to offer her everything and just like him she will not be able to resist the temptation to take it all back. Not now. Not after  _this_. Keela turns her gaze back to watch the dust drift and looks for the one speck of hope lost within the endless ocean. She is a broken, tattered thing, but every flower twists towards the light. After all this ruin, who is she now?

 


	2. Those Left Behind

Her battle against exhaustion is coming to an end when the door to her recovery room creaks open. She hears it somewhere between the waking world and the lulling rhythm of the Fade she has done her best to ignore. She can’t rest, she never can. There is always something to do but what can she truly do now? Anchorless, armless, so much more  _less_  than before. 

“Aren’t you a sight.”

Keela jerks up in bed and snaps her attention towards the sound of his voice, all thoughts of slumber batted away in an instant. Dorian leans on the closed door, arms and legs crossed in a pose to display disregard, but she can see the darkened spots beneath his eyes no matter how he tries to cover them. There are other signs of his turmoil if one knows how to look and she does for she feels every similar crack in her own soul. 

And it is her that has caused these wounds.

 _Bas_ echoes in her mind, a knife piercing into flesh she didn’t know was exposed. A great axe curves too close and slices through her barrier like parchment. She made sure it would cleave their enemies with ease. There is no more time to do anything but survive, sparks of electricity and fire, groans of metal and leather all around, and The Iron Bull, Hissrad, something that was once her companion, is too quiet, too contained, but by no means less deadly. And then he is dead although it is hard to tell at first, one blue eye already turned black, already gone, and she can only be thankful it was not Dorian that cut him down in the end. There is no time to mourn or rage as a dragon roars and the anchor bites, but she does think of him as they set the beast free and wonders why she could not do the same for him when it counted.

“Dorian, I can’t even…” For how long she has cried, despite how deep this well of misery is inside, it is still some surprise to find tears building in her eyes once more. She tries to push it all back by dropping her face into her hands,  _her hands_ , and a sob shakes her as it all floods through anew. “I-I’m so sorry! I…”

“Now, now, I’ll have none of that,” he chastises even as he sits by her side and pulls her into an embrace. After all the loss felt, of betrayals she forged herself, the sight of gentle cloth replaced by cold armor, she can’t help but cling to Dorian with desperation. He is warm and here and whole and she is not. There is no feigning strength now and she gives into his quiet humming and comforting touch.

And she cries all the harder because even now, especially now, she wishes it was another that held her so close.

“I’m sorry,” she repeats when the storm has abated. 

“It would be easier to believe it was all a lie from the start, but Bu- _he_ never lied. I was just a hopeless fool who didn’t ask the right questions. There’s blame to share and I’ll thank you to stop taking all the credit, understood?”

“Dorian-”

“Escaping arranged marriages and blood magic, first love ending in utter disaster. I daresay I would make for a bestseller myself. Keela.” He holds her at a distance, forcing their eyes to meet. “Hurts like hell, but I’ll manage. I’ve spent a lifetime rolling with the punches, as Varric would say. But you, you let them hit you straight on and always expect to get up in the end.”

“I…” She wants to reassure him that she’ll be all right, but the words stick in her aching throat. It is not the truth and she is not sure she will ever rise from this massacre inside. Everything is broken and brittle. Her heart, her body, her friends, her calling, her world. All of it is a pain no potion can heal.

Dorian’s fingers pulse around her arm as concern draws his face down. “How can I leave you like this?”

“Because you have to.”

“And I suppose you will do what you must?” 

She thinks of Solas again in his sharp armor glistening in the sunlight, remembers when he was nothing but soft edges in the moonlight, and it seems an impossibility to save the one without killing the other. “What else can I do?” she asks with just a spark of that familiar, stubborn anger but it is not enough to start a fire just yet. “I am the Inquisitor and the Inquisitor does what needs to be done no matter the cost.”

“Then be the Inquisitor no longer. What has following blind duty done for any of us, hm? Don’t be mistaken. I would be rather upset if Solas manages to carry out his mad plan and I don’t intend to let him, but I’m willing to wager if anyone can find another way it is you.”

“And if I can’t?”

“I trust that you’ll do what’s necessary when it comes to it but for your sake and for mine, try.”

The thought is so startling she can only blink at him for a few moments. She came to the Winter Palace with every intention of leaving the Inquisitor still, of fighting for what she shed blood and tears for over the years. To be just herself…would it be enough? Could everything she’s been through be a crutch instead of a curse? She feels on the cusp of something, can see a sliver of light through the dense dark forest of her anguish, but her mind has become too addled to concentrate on it for too long. Her heavy head falls forward to rest on his shoulder and it becomes a renewed struggle to keep her eyes open.

“I’m so tired, Dorian.” She feels it everywhere, this exhaustion that is so much more than physical. It is a blanket that smothers instead of consoles and there is not enough fight left in her to be rid of it.

“Then sleep.”

Keela shakes her head, panic fluttering with clawed wings inside her ribs. “I can’t, I can’t. I will not survive  _them_.”

“You can but don’t worry, I’ll protect you. There will be no bouts of possession on my watch.” He shimmies them both up the bed and she is too weak to resist, too lonely to not press close and cower beside him.

Quiet settles over the room again yet it is not the oppressive kind she has suffered under for the last few days. With Dorian’s heart beating beneath her ear there is a peace to it that makes her want to weep fresh tears although for different reasons. The desire to rest is stronger than it all but she cannot sleep just yet.

“I do not deserve you. Thank you,” she says as her eyes drift closed. 

“No one deserves me,” he quips with the same confidence of old. There is a following pause, however, long enough that she can’t quite be sure she is still awake until his hand wraps tighter around her arm and something cumbersome crawls out with his shaking breath. Her last, full thought is how glad she is to not be able to see his face for it would surely damn her as much as any demon.

“Dream of better things,” he whispers, soft and somber, before the Fade swallows her whole.


	3. Where It's Needed Most

She wakes up screaming.

It is not dreams and demons that cause this terror. It is the memory of pain that pulls ragged cries from her mouth as lines of fire race up her amputated arm. She can feel her fingers moving, the mark burning in palm, the hot blade that took it all away. For one moment she feels whole again and even if it is a torment she wants to hold onto it for as long as she can. Then the searing heat is gone. She tries to twist fingers that aren’t there anymore and the hollow ache she can’t cope with settles back into place. Keela wipes at the cold sweat against her forehead, tries to swallow the heartbeat pulsing high her throat making it difficult to breathe.

“I’m sorry. That isn’t a hurt I can help.” 

It has been a long time since Cole’s sudden appearances have startled a gasp from her lips. He is atop a dresser crouched with legs pulled to his chest and she watches him tilt his head, murky eyes narrowing, as he tries to catch onto each battered thought rattling within.

When he doesn’t speak right away, Keela relaxes clenched fingers. She doubts she will ever be ready to hear her own thoughts spoken aloud, but it would be nice to compose herself first before she’s split open and laid bare by his words. In the still she notices the faint light that slips through the curtains and illuminates the bed. The empty bed.

“Where’s Dorian?”

“You need protecting out there too. _Savior, saved but shattered. Bearer of bad news that no longer bears the mark. What has she done now?_ They want answers _._  Cassandra’s sword still scares them though.”

The Council. They don’t want answers. They want her gone, to make her out of marble and put her in a museum to be memorialized and forgotten all the same. Or perhaps they will simply wipe her from history like they did Ameridan. Keela’s mind turns upon her conversation with Dorian. If she is to lose the title of Inquisitor regardless, she could make it her choice. Her terms.

“Yes. You weren’t ready before. You were too tired, embers grown cold. Now they glow. They can remember what is was to be a flame.”

She feels them inside, those tiny sparks fighting for life. Everything is still there but with exhaustion gone from her bones it is easier to dam it up long enough to sift through some of the rubble. Cole jumps down from his perch and comes to sit by her hip. She doesn’t think he’s ever been this close outside of battles and she watches, amazed, as his hand brushes against her own. Warmth curls up her arm, spreads through her chest, and the gentle feeling finally makes it easier to breathe again. 

He sighs. “Your hurt is stubborn just like all the rest.”

Keela can’t help but give a fledgling laugh at the put out expression on his face. She wonders what he sees now that the orb’s power is gone. Is there anything of worth left?

“The anchor made you blinding, but you have always been bright. _She can see the sunlight through the trees but she climbs the highest branches to be closer, seeking something that shines._  I like you better this way. You are just you, not what you think you should be.”

The sentiment makes her feel better. Not right, not yet, but not so scattered as before. “I thought spirits would be there to sink their fangs into me if I slept. I don’t even remember dreaming at all.”

“Some tried. I stopped them.”

“You watched over my dreams?”

“They wonder about you.  _Friend of the flesh and the Fade, healer of holes handless and heart less_. But the wolf howls and the Veil trembles again. Most will stay away where it’s safe, I think, but the ones that stay will have sharp enough teeth to challenge the Dread Wolf.” 

Fen’Harel. Solas may have come first, but at the end it was not her lover that turned and disappeared into the eluvian. She knows what it is to wear a mask to hide from it all.

“He tried, too.  _Harden your heart to a cutting edge_. He meant it more for himself.” Cole’s hat dips down until she can only see his lips. “He is worried about you,” he whispers, hesitant, and as a ball of resentment builds up inside she understands why. It’s not really something she wants to hear.

“And what does he think of his latest creation?” she asks with bitterness cloying in her throat as she gestures to her broken body. 

“I didn’t let him see. You wouldn’t want it.  _Don’t let anyone see where I can’t look._   _Shamed to be the needy instead of the need_. _You are so beautiful…I wasn’t enough to make him stay then, what will he think now?”_ Cole shakes his head. “He thinks he’s an idiot.”

Her laugh this time is born from surprise more than amusement. The clarity that sleep has allowed is good for her body, but it lets her feel more fully too. Lets her remember everything when she only saw flashes through the haze before. To remember the endless doorways, two heartbeats beating against each other, sneering faces demanding her removal. Bull’s blood on the stone. To remember Solas with blue eyes that weren’t his and a kiss that was and not knowing which was worse, another goodbye or the anchor eating flesh.

“Torn, traitor traipsing in trusted face, twisting a knife that took its time.  _Why did he wait so long to save me?_ ”

A panicked cry leaves her lips before she can cover her mouth. Keela can’t think about it all at once, least of all Solas, for his face brings back every horror a thousand fold. Without him, none of it would have happened. He should have killed her the first day they met instead of this slow death. 

“No, I’m sorry!” Cole stands up, hands tumbling over one another. “I tugged the wrong one. You’re both too tangled together to know which strings to pull on that won’t make the knots tighter.” 

“It’s not  _your_  fault,” she says and immediately regrets it as that memory seeps into the growing storm as well.

Cole makes a noise before his fingers latch onto hers and she jolts against the sudden burst of comfort. It is almost too much as her great sorrow wars with his persistence sympathy and for a moment she drowns under it all. And then there is light and air and the squall recedes against the horizon, present but no longer an immediate danger.

“Thank you,” she says when the thought of words doesn’t fill her with fear again. He takes his touch away but she still feels it beneath her skin. “For everything.”

“You helped me, let me be me and it made me more. I won’t forget.” He pauses and glances towards the window to listen to something that she could never hear. “There is pain coming. Old and ruined, new and doomed, mixing together like music that hurts to hear. I have to go.”

“Where?”

“Where the hurt, hurts the most. Where it all began.” Cole’s gaze turns back to her and there is a determination there that usually sees enemy blood shed. “Pride needs Compassion to understand forgiveness.”

“And where am I needed most?” she wonders after a pause.

He points to her chest and something like lightning strikes inside her heart. “There.” 

She doesn’t understand and she does. She will never be able to face Solas’ demons if she cannot face her own, but that is a road Keela can’t see through the brambles and thorns just yet.

“I will leave soon, gone like I came,” Cole announces. “It will be easier that way I think. You’ve had too many goodbyes.”

“Will I remember you?”

“Yes. I hope I will help.”

“You always have. When you find him, will you tell him…” She stops, bites her lip. What does she want to say? She hates him, hates herself for loving him, and she’s not going to give up fighting for her world until her last breath or the last beat of his heart. But she will save Solas if she can. He was the home she has always wanted, the end of the journey for her own wandering soul. If there is a future for them she will fight for it too, if she can.

“I understand.  _Never again shall we submit_. I will make sure he doesn’t forget either.” Cole rises from the bed, bouncing on his heels with a purpose she wishes she felt so strongly too. “Sleep is best now. You can face the Council when you wake.”

And as she fills her lungs with air not weighed down, she can almost believe it. Keela looks at him, memorizing as much as she can even if he still stays in her memory when he’s gone, because nothing lasts in this world. “Cole, I…I’ll talk to you later.”

“How do you know?” But he smiles and the empty spaces around and inside her don’t feel so big anymore. 


	4. Pieces of Broken Glass

Cole is right. When she wakes it takes almost little effort to rouse herself from bed and stand on her own. There is life her limbs again, the tapestries of her will weaving back into place. Loss and heartache beat against the crumbling walls still, but for the first time in days she wants to push it away and do something about it. Keela feels the warmth from the midday sun as she moves slowly across the room to the small basin nearby. The water is cool and welcoming and washes away the remaining threads of haziness from her mind. She can do this. Feet carry her across the room to the door and she yanks it open.

Several bodies jump to attention in the parlor attached to her room, eyes blowing wide at the surprise of seeing her, not to mention the state she must be in. She runs her fingers through tangled hair and tries to stand straight in her simple shift, but if any of them are disgusted they do not show it. There is only concern mixed with elation to see her strong enough to walk through the door.

“Inquisitor, you’re...” Cassandra gives her a careful smile like Keela might run like a skittish halla. “It’s good to see you awake.”

“We’ve all been worried about you,” Vivienne adds and she can see it in the way they hold their shoulders tight, the circles building beneath eyes, and it sets an uncomfortable bubble in her throat. Keela tugs on her left sleeve without thinking even if it is not long enough to cover the shortened length of her arm.

“I...” it comes out a whisper and she coughs to clear the cobwebs away. “I would speak with the council now.”

“You’ve made your decision about the Inquisition?” Cassandra asks.

“Yes. I had no intention of disbanding us when we first came here, but things have changed.” 

She resists the urge to glance down at her left hand no longer there. They may still follow her without the mark, but the Inquisition will be vulnerable without the fear it instilled in her opponents, more vulnerable than so many spies have already made it. There are many reasons to keep the Inquisition together in some capacity that will allow her to thwart Solas and keep the countries of Thedas pacified, but that is not who she needs to be.

“I can be the Inquisitor no longer, not for what is to come. I would see history remember us as those who saved the world from the Breach and not become anything less. If you disagree, if you wish to continue on without me-”

“There is no Inquisition without you,” Cassandra says, so sure, and it is almost too difficult to look at the loyalty on her face. If only she had inspired such confidence in others. “We support your decision.”

“I have anticipated such a possibility,” Josephine speaks up. “It will take some time to dismantle our forces. We must send word to every keep and negotiate their holdings with Ferelden and Orlais, not to mention deciding what to do with the Inquisition’s plentiful assets. Then, we-”

“I want Skyhold,” Keela interrupts, surprising herself as much as the ambassador. “I do not care what must be done to secure it, but I would not see it fall into hands that we cannot trust. Tarasyl'an Te'las, _the place the sky was held back_.”

“A prudent idea, Inquisitor,” Josephine agrees. There are more reasons Keela would not part with the stronghold, but they are nothing that need said at the moment. “I imagine it will not take much effort to reach acceptable terms considering all the Inquisition has done.”

“Have Cullen rally whoever wishes to return to depart back to Skyhold. I want us gone from this place as soon as possible.”

“I will stay behind to negotiate for as long as it takes and see to our immediate preparations.”

“In the meantime, we should get you ready to greet the council,” Vivienne says and steps closer. “I’ll have a few attendants sent to ready a bath and the medics will want to take a look at your injuries I’m sure.”

She would rather do everything on her own, but there’s little chance she can manage. “Just no elven servants.”

“Of course. I doubt any of them are still lurking about the palace with the way Cassandra has been chasing them off. Don’t fret, I’ll see to everything.”

Human attendants bring hot water for her bath while a medic tends to her injuries as it fills. Keela still keeps her eyes averted from her arm, unwilling to see what the mangled flesh might look like. The water is near boiling just as she prefers and with great relief she sinks into the clean water. Gentle fingers run through her hair and some of her tension untangles itself with each knot undone. There is little time to soak in its luxury, however, and not enough time in the world to wash away every ache and blemish infecting her body.

It is challenging but not impossible to step into her smalls and pants. She even manages to put on her boots and conquer most of the buckles herself, but her tops prove to be more difficult foes. The grip on her blooming sanity starts to slip as her breast band continues to fall out of grasp when she tries to wind it around her chest. With shameful reluctance she lets her attendants help and feels herself unraveling with each layer added over her heart. 

When it is done, they glance between her and the next article of clothing, a shirt with two long sleeves when all that’s needed is one, and she feels like screaming as they chew on their lips.

“And you were both so highly recommended,” a voice says from the doorway, sighing with disappointment, and Keela looks up to the see Vivienne sweeping into the room. “Let us hope you take direction as well as they suggested. Here now, do as I say.” 

The Divine directs the two ladies with a confident voice that seems to bolster their own failings and soon they are both working with pins sticking out of their mouths and creases of concentration between their brows. Vivienne seems to know exactly how to arrange the jacket that Keela wonders if she once did this for someone else. Then she’s made to sit and loses herself to the feeling of a comb through her long hair, the feather soft touch of a brush against her face, all as Vivienne’s soft voice makes suggestions. As she closes her eyes, she can picture herself reclining together with the Divine at the spa in Halamshiral, a time when things weren’t simple but were more than manageable.

After a few minor, final adjustments Keela gazes at herself in the mirror wearing the scarlet uniform of the Inquisition and sees only the things that are different instead of what is still the same. With her hair soft and shining, kohl atop her lids and powder under eyes and the sleeve of her jacket pinned up, she doesn’t look completely wrong, but nothing is right. She is not right.

“Run along now, my dears,” Vivienne says as she notices the cracks forming across Keela’s thin veneer. “You have done well after all.”

All the confidence, all the purpose upon waking, starts to drift away. She barely notices the ladies bow and leave. She is scattered, shattered, unable to see the pattern in the broken fragments of her will any more. She can’t do this. “I-I can’t.”

Vivienne comes to stand by her side and runs her fingers over the mirror’s surface. “Glass is not dangerous until you break it. Each piece will cut without mercy and even the tiniest one hidden from sight will make you bleed. Such a beautiful thing can become so deadly with sharp edges against the world. You are not broken, my dear. You are a weapon.”

“I’m…”

“I know. Use it.”

Keela closes her eyes again and takes a breath. She thinks about the searing heat of the anchor, the cold numbness of its loss. How Bull’s gaze turned dark before he died, how Solas’ burned bright right before he left. There is sorrow, so much pain, but she reaches for the rage instead. It has always been her companion, making her stubborn against the demands of the world, against death and demons, against those that would pull her down. Keela lets it fill her up again and burn away all the rest until she can feel flames licking skin.

When she opens her eyes, they are on fire.

“There you are, darling.” Vivienne reaches up to smooth Keela’s jacket and brush a lock of hair from her face. "When you pull yourself together again, and you will, you will be something even more beautiful than before." A few knocks rap against the door. “It is time and please, no more tears or else you will ruin all my hard work.”

Keela laughs and finds the thought of doing such a thing keeps them at bay just as well as the anger. Something she suspects her friend knew all along. “I wouldn’t want to disappoint.”

There is a softness to Vivienne’s gaze, pride in her smile. “You never have.”

 

Later, Keela stands in front of the eluvian used to enter the Crossroads. It is dark now although she expected nothing less. Her image is distorted in the ancient glass, warped and faded, but she sees something else. Something with sharp edges, something that can fight back when trampled upon. Something dangerous. She lifts her arm and throws the heavy, gilded paperweight in her hand at the mirror. It cracks across the middle, veins splintering out like forked lightning, before it all shatters and falls away to spread across the floor. The raucous noise echoes around the small room, but she barely hears it as she stares at all the broken pieces, a thousand images, a thousand possibilities, sparkling up at her.

Without another word, she leaves Orlais behind. 


	5. Not Enough Rocks

It is the first time she dreams with any lasting clarity. Ever since leaving Halamshiral there have only been muted memories, vague impressions like looking from the bottom of a lake up into the sky. Keela believes she has Cole to thank for it; even if he is no longer with her, he promised to watch over her. Now, there are vestiges of wicked laughter in her ears and cold fingers reaching out, teeth sharp and ready to rip into her misery, but she’s pulled somewhere else upon a gentle current and swept away from the reach of demons. 

The meadow around her is quiet, peaceful, sleepy yellow flowers drooping down beneath a half moon, and it reminds her of places in the Hinterlands unscathed by war. Proud pines circle around the area as fireflies dance between the boughs, stars drifting down from the heavens to caress the world. Somewhere an owl calls into the night, soft and serene, and it all speaks of peace and security. Of a home that isn’t hers but welcoming all the same.

She notices nothing but her left arm. 

The Fade does not reflect cruel reality, but it is no boon to see what is now lost forever. She stares at her palm, unmarked, at the midnight veins beneath skin, unsevered. There is no seam between what is and what used to be. It is like it never happened at all and she wishes she could forget the truth. Slowly, she reaches the fingers of her whole hand towards ones missing and lets out a sob as they connect.

She can feel it, she can feel them. _She feels too much_.

Keela bends over herself, cradling her absent arm, and cries into the glistening dirt. It is there and she is whole again and she wonders if she can simply lose herself to this dream and never wake. Nothing waits for her in the waking world but more suffering, eyes that once respected her watching her with pity, a thousand questions and a solution she is not sure can actually be found. It is all so impossible, the road ahead impassable. But this…could she not stay here forever instead?

Keela is not sure she hears anything else but the quiet chirp of crickets yet she feels the pull of something, someone watching and waiting. Her head lifts to the edge of the forest ahead and find a wolf sitting there.

It is the color of pure snowfall with eyes that shine bright even in the darkness around them, and rests there just as still as the deep drifts coating the hillsides outside Skyhold. It could be a figment of the Fade drawn from the depths of her waking thoughts for if there is a creature that stalks every moment now it is this one, but the Fen’Harel she knows is something larger, darker than any shadow with eyes that bleed lies.

Tired legs draw her up again and that familiar feeling of rage rises inside until she tastes ash in her mouth. Fen’Harel _._ It wasn’t the ancient god that set her on this path. It was a lover that looked her in the eyes while he drove the dagger through her heart and said he was _sorry_.

“How could you do this to me! How could you watch me coming apart right before your eyes and do nothing until it was too late? Did my suffering serve some purpose for you? You’ve ruined me! You…you-” 

She reaches to pick a rock from the earth and hurls it at the white shape. She bends down again and suddenly there are hundreds of stone at her feet, all a perfect size for her grip. He might have drawn her to this place, but it is still her dream after all. Screams and curses fly from her mouth in Elvhen, Tevene, Common, some with no words at all. The wrath and hurt need little translation.

Even though the wolf doesn’t move, her aim is made useless by the tears blurring her eyes and, she suspects, some twisted magic of the dream. Or maybe it really is him. It doesn’t matter whether he lets her pelt him over and over or not. He is not truly here, either way. He is somewhere leagues away planning to destroy her whole world and it will not matter if she is caught in the destruction. _She does not matter_. 

Keela lets out a frustrated growl when there is no ammunition left to throw and crashes back to the ground. The impact is felt in her knees, up the palms of her hands, and the pain is nothing compared to the fact she will never feel it like this ever again. Her anger is spent and there is nothing left but the crippling agony of all she has endured and all she now must endure, without limb and friends, without connections and armies. Without him.

“Solas, please! Please…please don’t leave me alone to this. I can’t, I cannot- _Please_!” It is a broken cry from her lips and echoes across the grass in rippling waves. This time she weeps from the sorrow eating away at her like a gluttonous insect. She has always been apart from others in some way, by her tangent desires with her clan, by position in the Inquisition, but never has she felt this hollow loneliness with such teeth.

When she looks up again, the wolf has not moved. It only watches her with those passive, blue eyes, and if not for the slow rise and fall of fur across his broad chest she could believe it was simply a statue. But no, it is a choice. His choice, if it is him, and for all his declarations of devotion, he has stood there and watched her suffer before. Memories curl inside, sharpen, and she thinks of the jagged pieces of the eluvian spread before her. _Harden your heart_ , he said once.

“ _Vhenan_.” She spits out the word like it is poison in her mouth and there is no more hurt or misery, rage or sorrow left within. There is only a cold darkness spreading where once light shined bright. “You have no heart.”

With a thought, she sets the meadow on fire. 


	6. A Romantic's Heart

The Inquisitor No More sits high upon her hart with a face made for etching in marble as she leads her remaining forces out through the gates of Halamshiral. A few hours later she all but falls from the saddle and spends the rest of the journey to Skyhold in the back of a wagon, weak with fever and phantom pains from all that’s been lost. It is on the third day that she dreams of him - of a wolf at the edge of a forest watching her come apart piece by piece. If it is not him it is a cruel twist of her mind then and either way the results are the same.

Her friends worry as she hides herself away, eating little and talking even less. She only asks for potions to keep her from dreaming and even so sometimes she wakes the camp with screams that sound like a wounded, angry animal caught in a trap. It is difficult to watch, to listen, and the whole caravan comes down with its own malaise. The world outside her sanctuary becomes quiet, broken up by swift orders and the neighing of horses. There is little conversation and laughter and she wishes she could care. Shrugging on the mantel of the Inquisitor to hide away is even an impossible thing out of reach. She is too tired, too lost, and she is the Inquisitor no longer.

So on the eighth day she doesn’t quite understand what she’s hearing as voices and sunlight stream through the drifting curtains. Limbs that have barely moved stretch and shake when she drags herself towards the end of the wagon, eyes blinking when the afternoon sun brushes across her face. There is a campfire, chunks of smoking meat spinning above it as Rainier keeps careful watch. Cullen sits with a sword across his knees, head shaking as he pretends to pay attention to its smooth surface. 

It is Sera’s laughter that has called Keela out towards the open. She lays across the grass, tossing stones above her head. “Go on, who’s next?”

They’re all looking, or in Cullen’s case pretending not to look, at Cassandra who paces nearby, nose shoved between the pages of a book. Her eyes flash up for a second, sparkling with mischief, before returning to the tome. “The Commander had the look of a Templar who had seen the worst of humanity, but still had time to style his hair. ‘This isn’t just a war,’ he said, his voice steely like a dull blade. ‘It’s the only war.’”

The rogue elf laughs again, like quick strikes against a drum, as Cassandra finishes her best imitation of Cullen’s voice. While Sera rolls in between dandelions his frown grows. “She’s got you pegged, Commander,” Rainier remarks.

“Does he expect people to buy this rubbish?”

“Do Vivvy again!”

Cassandra flips back and clears her throat. “’I’m so glad you made it, my dear,’ she said. ‘I am Madame de Fer, the most terrifying person you shall ever meet.’”

Sera shivers. “Creepy good.”

“What are you doing?” Curiosity finally coaxes Keela to speak and even though the words come out croaked and quiet, the others immediately turn to find her. Cullen and Rainier spring up from their seats while Cassandra’s feet stutter beneath her.

“Inquisitor! I mean-I...you are-” She waves the book in hand. “It’s Varric’s new book. He gave it to me before we left the Winter Palace.”

“It’s about the Inquisition and all that. Us. Cassandra’s been giving the good bits,” Sera pipes up. “Show her me!”

The Seeker hesitates this time, concerned eyes glancing up at her former leader. Keela props herself up against a wall, arms folding, and there’s something like amusement at the corner of her mind. There have been many nights where the two friends have laughed over flowery writing and flowing wine, but it is surprising to see Cassandra willing to share this part of herself with so many others. She’s not going to make her stop, nor let her get away with it.

“Well?” She smirks, or tries to, the muscles of her mouth stiff, but by Cassandra’s quiet huff the message must be clear enough.

“All right, let me see.” Paper crinkles to find the place. “Ah, here. ‘Not playing, weirdy,’ she said, gesturing with, and dismissively eating, a sandwich. ‘Don’t write that. Seriously, piss up a rope.’”

Sera lets out a snort. “He’s gonna get a face full of it.”

Cassandra makes her way over to the wagon, steps and expression a little hesitant, as if she might startle a deer. A warm spike of annoyance hammers between Keela’s ribs, freeing her spirit with every strike. She takes a breath and holds it in, tasting the world on her tongue. It seems so long since she inhaled anything but bitter grief. “How are you feeling?”

“I...I could use some water, please.” Cullen all but stumbles over himself as he grabs his canteen and brings it to her.

“Anything to eat?” Rainier asks. “Lunch is almost ready.”

Keela shakes her head. The idea of food is still a daunting task and her stomach protests the thought. For now she takes careful sips of water and reacquaints herself with the feeling of company pressing in. Besides the medic and the visions of her dreams, she has been alone for most of the journey. Her hand instinctively goes up to check for Dorian’s amulet only to find it missing and she remembers throwing it across her small space on the sixth day. She couldn’t stand it, hearing someone that wasn’t there, hearing _anyone,_ but her loneliness suddenly overwhelms her like an unsuspecting wave.

She scoots closer to Cassandra, bringing her legs to swing over the lip of the wagon and lets them dangle in the air. “And what did he write about you, falon?”

The Seeker pauses a moment more, unyielding gaze searching hers, before she starts to dig through the book. After a few pages, a line creases between her brows. “Wait, where am I? I don’t...oh wait, here it is! The Seeker clutched at my vest, her tears as desperate as they were pitiful. ‘Varric I was wrong about everything,' she sobbed. ‘Could you find it in your noble heart to forgive me?’”

“That dwarf...he...he...he put me in the book!” She laughs, _giggles_ , and holds the book out like it is a well earned trophy. “I’m in the book! I am reading the shit out of this.”

Her easy joy rattles a laugh out of Keela too. It startles her, startles them all by the way they gape at her, but Cassandra is quick to grin like she has landed a disarming blow. She has stood by her side to face a great evil trying to consume the world and Keela knows she will stay there to help face this enemy inside. So many things still hurt, so many parts of her laying in rubble, but not this, not _them._ Even though her heart may be shattered and sharp with jagged pieces, she can still rely on the steady beating of a romantic’s heart.

Keela leans her head down upon Cassandra’s shoulder. “Keep reading.”


	7. What Can't be Saved

She faces the crowd inside Skyhold with back straight and voice clear. It is by some miracle that Cassandra and Cullen manage to strap her into the ceremonial armor of the Inquisitor one last time and it does not see her toppling from the stairs above the courtyard. It seems a thousand years ago that she stood here with sword raised high, no scars to bear but the one slashed across her hand. Now she tips the metal into the ground and bows her head in thanks to the scouts and soldiers, cooks and messengers and everyone in between who made it possible for her to close the Breach the final time.

It is a more difficult task to face the mirror in her quarters. She stands before it with skin still tingling beneath a soft robe from a scolding bath. There is no one here but her reflection and it is an enemy she has not wished to fight. With shaking fingers she reaches down to undo the simple loop around her waist and lets the robe fall from her shoulders. It takes her a moment to find the courage to lift her gaze again. She takes a breath, steeling herself against the pain to come- this wound that needs cauterized, the break that needs set. There can be no more hiding from it.

Dark circles rest beneath her eyes that speak of long nights spent pining for the past, cheeks hollowed out from screaming for things gone. A few rows of ribs stick out and she runs her fingers over them, counting each lie, each forgotten truth of his empire of dust. She is a structure haunted by ghosts and she feels them rattling through every weary inch. 

She finally looks at her left arm. Weeks have passed since its removal and still she has given only cursory glances to this beast she has refused to acknowledge. The constant supervision of healers has limited scarring and smoothed skin, but there are still dark bruises and strange bumps, skin dried and cracking. No matter how many spells or potions they tried, no one could erase the blackened marks like lightning shooting up to her shoulder. They’ve faded on their own somewhat, retreating back, and she wonders if they will always be there, scars underneath her skin. Just like him. 

Keela reaches out and gently touches the end of her arm, wincing even though there is little pain, but she feels it in her mind as she replays the memory of its amputation, the crackle and burn of the anchor. She thinks about her heavy mage’s staff, still likely buried in the back of the wagon- useless now. She thinks about brushing long hair, of holding a piece of paper while she writes, of wearing her favorite dresses that show her shoulders and arms and all the sun kissed skin she once looked upon with pride. She thinks of laying bare before someone else and their eyes only resting on what is missing and she prays and begs that this is nothing more than a dream. _This cannot be real, it can’t it can’t it can’t-_

Movement in the mirror catches her attention. She lets out a noise of surprise, scrambling to return the robe to its place, and the task is made all the more difficult in her new state. She twists and curses while fighting through frustrated tears, and only when the thing is finally back in place does she turn to face whoever has climbed the stairs of her keep. “I wasn’t-”

The words are swept away as she meets Rylen’s gaze. Her body lurches at the impact like a great axe has wedged itself between her ribs. It is like seeing the dead walking again for through every eluvian, every mountain climbed and cavern explored, every harsh word and soft caress, and every tear and rip of her heart, she did not think of him once. The realization rises bile up her throat. She had forgotten him. How could she have forgotten?

Something clacks against the floor, a cane she finds, as Rylen slowly approaches her. His leg is free of the heavy cast he wore when she left but he is not completely healed either. There is a sheen of sweat across his brow, a grimace of pain battling for space upon his face for it is already full of concern and relief, anger and misery. She rushes forward to help him but it is a difficult thing to keep her own feet when they touch, when he drops the cane and shoves his hand into her hair to pull her close. 

He says her name like a sour surrender and she knows he has been told what happened at the Winter Palace and across Thedas, of who she met beyond spelled glass and spilled secrets. She can’t help but cling to him in return and try to forget all that he knows. There is an ache growing in her chest, a pressure of panic against something unstoppable, and no matter how hard she holds on it is destined to sweep her away.

“Come with me,” he says, pulling away so she can see the conviction on his face.

“What?”

“Damn him and damn the world. You owe them nothing. Let someone else be mad enough and if it’s an end then so be it. Live what’s left with me.”

“I…” She shakes her head, tears scorching like poison down her skin. “I can’t.”

“If you go after him, if you fail-”

“I am _not_ going to die for him.” And she means it. She’ll wage war, shed blood, chase Solas across water and land to fight monsters lurking inside and out, but she will make sure this story concludes with his final submission or his last breath. 

“Aye, sure. I also know he left you there like this and if you think I could have walked away-” He grabs her by the arms, desperate eyes shining, and she can’t stand against it anymore. Keela sinks to the ground and he is there to help her in even this, catching her before she hurts herself against the stone despite his own pain, but she is not safe from the razor sharp edge of his words. 

“If that didn’t stop him what’s it going to take? Your knife at his throat, I’d wager. I know you. _I know you_. It’ll kill you just the same. Keela, please! I’ve not asked one thing of you in all this time. Not one. I’m begging you not to do this. Stay with me, love.”

She thinks about that lake he spoke about once with a vibrant sunset rippling across its surface, of the possibility of a little cottage in the middle of nowhere with a warm hearth and creaking walls. Or maybe a villa by the sea where feet can disappear into sand as the waves crash and roll, uncaring of the designs of man. Wherever would be a home with him for however long they had. Solas’ plans could even pass by and let them live in peace and she wants it, this offering of love without having to fight and bleed for it, this vow that if the world should end she won’t face it alone. 

That future was taken from her, however, the moment she understood whose footprints and fate she followed while her hand disappeared and her ties to a fallen god grew all the more tangled because of it. She doesn’t have a choice and they both know it. Keela smiles, a small, bittersweet thing. “I am his heart and he is mine.”

Rylen rises back to his feet and stands still for a moment, fists pulsing with promise at his sides. He does not hide. She can see the rage, the despair, the disbelief, but he does not know what to do with it all and she understands the futile frustration all too well. It is with a sudden, great roar that he leaps forward and sweeps the contents of her desk away. An ink well cracks and spills tendrils across the floor, dozens of papers rain down and drift out onto the balcony and into the air of Skyhold and none of the damage compares to the loss of what could have been.

He moves back in front of her, hands reaching out but not touching like he’s fighting against a force between them, and she wonders if this is how Solas thinks of his lover fighting a battle that cannot be won. With a final groan, Rylen covers his face, wipes away at the water collected there, and when she sees his eyes again there is defeat found in the bright blue. “Damn it.”

He does not stop to pick up his discarded cane as he turns and hobbles back towards the stairs and Keela can’t make herself get up to follow him. The floor holds her tight, as if she has turned into stone and become another fading part of Skyhold, but she doesn’t want this to be how it ends for them. 

“Where will you go?” she calls out as he reaches the banister.

There’s a laugh, harsh and hard. “Anywhere but here. Anywhere but where you are.”

She deserves it, she knows, and yet it still stings. Her hand comes up to choke a cry before it can fly beyond her lips. His gaze softens at that, for even if it’s earned he has never been cruel, and the sight makes her misery all the more potent. She does not tell him that she loves him, that she wishes everything had been different, that there is no apology great enough to wipe this slate clean. He knows, but the time for those truths is over.

As he disappears from sight another part of her is cut away, something wonderful and real and _hers_ that can no longer be saved, and she feels it as surely as she felt the hot blade that split her skin and bone. She bends forward, fisting her fingers into the plush rug below, and lets out a sob that shakes through everything that remains. Amongst the wreckage of torn papers, shattered glass and broken things, she wonders what she will lose next.


End file.
